Page 34 of Final Betrayal

‘What?’ Lottie tugged his sleeve, forcing him to turn to her. ‘You’ve informed him already?’ Secretly she was glad she wouldn’t have to do that job.

‘You need to make haste, Detective Inspector Parker. Amy Whyte was probably killed late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. You’re losing valuable time. The killer could be in Spain by now.’

‘That’s not my fault. Her father only reported her missing yesterday.’

‘Give us time to have a piss first.’

A voice from the gathered troops caused Lottie to roll her eyes. Annoyed as she was by McMahon’s intrusion, she had to humour him. Her job depended on it.

‘Who said that?’ McMahon slapped a hand onto a desk. He turned to Lottie again. ‘Keep your team in order. I won’t stand for insubordination.’

‘You and me both,’ Lottie said. ‘I realise the significance of Mr Whyte’s importance in the community, but we can’t forget another young woman also lost her life. We need to look at all angles, means, motive and opportunity, in order to catch the killer.’

McMahon grunted. ‘It stinks of a random crackhead to me. I want this investigation up and running in the next ten minutes, and I want the crime solved by this evening.’ He turned to look at the photos on the board. ‘There’s a houseful of evidence right there. Find the bastard who did this.’

With that, he turned on his shiny pointy-toed leather shoes and left the room.

‘Prick,’ Boyd said.

‘Dick,’ Kirby said.

‘Bollocks,’ Lottie said.

Kirby stood. ‘I’ll get to work on the door-to-doors and collect whatever security footage I can. I’ll check our own traffic cams as well.’

‘I’ll interview Mrs Loughlin again,’ Garda Thornton said, picking up his cap from the desk and slapping it on his head.

Lottie held up a hand. ‘Wait a minute. I need to talk through the crime. If we rush head first into this, we might miss something that could save us a lot of time.’

Kirby sat back down and Thornton took off his cap. Boyd lined up the pages in the thin folder on his knee.

‘Okay. We have an abandoned house in the middle of a terrace of six at Petit Lane. All derelict except for Mrs Loughlin’s. When we have the nightclub footage, we should be able to find the exact time the girls left the establishment.’

‘They may have walked through the car park to take the shortcut via the underpass,’ Boyd said. ‘We need to contact the council to see if they have anything on their security systems.’

‘Good point,’ Lottie said. ‘Once we establish their last movements, we might get lucky and see the killer on camera.’

‘Do we know if either of the victims had a car?’ Thornton piped up.

‘Check that out. If they drove to the club, then maybe the car is still in the car park.’

‘Penny had a flat nearby, so that needs to be searched too,’ Boyd said.

‘Must have been hard to overpower two women at the same time,’ Kirby mused.

‘As far as we know, they didn’t leave together.’ Pulling at the frayed hem of a sleeve, Lottie added, ‘It’s possible he took one, subdued or killed her, and then went back for the second.’

‘Or the second girl was just an opportunistic killing,’ Boyd said.

‘Or she saw him and he needed to negate that threat.’

‘But why?’ Kirby said, his eyes sagging with unshed grief. ‘It’s all so pointless.’

‘If we establish a motive, we’ll know why. There might be a clue on their phones.’

‘Any sign of those?’ Kirby asked.

‘Both phones were in the vicinity of the bodies. McGlynn won’t release them to me until Jane has carried out her prelim of the scene and bodies.’ She sighed, hoping the state pathologist wasn’t delayed at the High Court. ‘But there are no handbags or personal belongings other than the phones, so it’s imperative that gardens and bins are checked.’

---